Operation Juventus' Blossom
Operation Juventus' Blossom (Eurasian: Operatio Flos Iuventi; Marquetien language: x) was a military operation conducted between the mid-1950's to 1969. The program was highly controversial, and it involved the kidnapping of mentally handicapped or ethnically undesirable Marquettian children to be used in Eurasian radiation experiments, in exchange for the technology to build nuclear weapons which was given to Marquette. Almost 200,000 died, either as a result of radiation sickness or being killed in testing. Those who survived the end of the program were euthanized. The program began in the mid-1950's, when the Eurasian and Marquetien militaries agreed to share technology learned from military experiments. The Eurasians proposed to the Marquetiens that, in exchange for a flow of replaceable test subjects, they would share nuclear weapons technology so Marquette could construct its own nuclear weapons. The Marquetien Government quickly agreed, and began to systematically kidnap and deport thousands of children both from their homes, orphanages, and mental institutions. These children either hailed from ethnic groups disliked by the government or were mentally of physically handicapped. Traditionally, Marquette sent these children on foreign study then immediately revoked their citizenship, but Eurasian authorities persuaded them to put them to more efficient, if brutal, use. The Eurasians used the children in a variety of ways. In nuclear weapon tests, the children were often staggered concentrically in various positions or locations from the hypocenter of the bomb. After detonation, the minimum safe distance was gauged using which had been killed either immediately or from radiation exposure or burns, as well as what materials protected the most adequately. An example of this was the Orcus' Maw test, the first thermonuclear test in history, in which the children were both placed concentrically from the hypocenter and placed in various structures. These structures were made of many different materials. In that test alone around 13,000 died. In addition to being used in the nuclear testing, they were also subjected to many varieties of radioactive testing. One phase of testing involved being intentionally exposed to massive amounts of high-level nuclear waste for varying periods of time. Another involved forced ingestion of plutonium beta particles. From leaked documents, the following experiments have been established: *Submersion in nuclear reactor coolant. *Exposure to gamma radiation at varying doses. *Exposure to alpha and beta particles. *Exposure to operating nuclear reactors. *One reported case of testing the efficacy of human tissue as a reactor shield, though this may have been unauthorized. If the Marquetiens provided them with surplus children, the Eurasians would generally use them to clean up nuclear waste from testing or from experimental reactors. When the program reached its end, the children were all euthanized, though it is rumored some may have been clandestinely transferred to the Operation Mariposa program when it was operational. Though since its reveal the program has been decried as a barbaric and flagrant violation of human rights, the data gleaned from the experiments proved vital in the development of nuclear weaponry, as well as in the development of safe nuclear reactor technology. It is estimated that the program boosted nuclear weapons and reactor technology by around twenty-years, due to the ban on human testing in most other countries.